Flagstaff will not run in BC Sprint, Sadler says

ARCADIA, Calif. - Flagstaff, the winner of two stakes for sprinters in the last year, will miss the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland on Nov. 7 after a recent training setback, trainer John Sadler said Sunday.

“He’s not going to go,” Sadler said. “It’s nothing serious.”

Sadler said Flagstaff will be pointed to stakes at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, which begins Dec. 26.

Owned by Pete and Kosta Hronis and Lane’s End Racing, Flagstaff has won 5 of 15 starts and has earned $555,785. A 6-year-old gelding, Flagstaff has been second in his last two starts to C Z Rocket - losing the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes at seven furlongs at Del Mar by a half-length on Aug. 29, and the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship at six furlongs by a head on Sept. 27.

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Flagstaff won the Damascus Stakes last November and the Grade 2 San Carlos Stakes in March. Those races were run at seven furlongs.

Sadler plans to have three runners in Breeders’ Cup races – Higher Power in the Classic, Ollie’s Candy in the Distaff, and Chaos Theory for the Turf Sprint.

Higher Power, third in the 2019 BC Classic at Santa Anita, breezed seven furlongs in 1:25.40 at Keeneland on Sunday. Chaos Theory, the winner of the Green Flash Handicap at Del Mar in August, breezed five furlongs on turf in 1:02.80 at Keeneland on Sunday.

- additional reporting by Jay Privman.